Spinning Numbers

A weird evening. Within five minutes, two sources call, each one hearing through the grapevine the internals of one of the two major campaigns in Massachusetts.

The key to the race is this - Coakley is now trying to depress turnout by running thousands of negative ads. With the race moving powerfully toward Scott, this is not likely to work to Coakley's benefit, but her concern is that independent voters are so charged up for Scott that she's got to find a way to discourage them from showing up. That's not going to win her votes - it's a lousy strategy - but the Coakley campaign is such a disaster that it's without options.

One tells me that the most recent internal poll of the Scott Brown campaign shows the Republican winning by... 11 percentage points. I'm getting the sense that the folks hearing this are almost a little incredulous, but it seems every demographic and key group is breaking to Brown in the past day or two.
For weeks, Brown and everyone around him has said they will campaign and work as if they're 30 percentage points down. But it seems like the campaign has been one Coakley stumble after another, and you figure that would eventually start effecting the numbers. According to that measure, it's starting to break heavily in Brown's direction... but we'll have to see what the final few days bring.

Coakley was so busy doing nothing that Scott had the airwaves to himself until ten days ago, and he used the time to introduce himself to voters and pump up his popularity. His favorability ratings are unusually good - hers are dangerously poor. She lacks the credibility to be attacking Scott without the attacks boomeranging.

The second source heard through the grapevine that the Martha Coakley campaign's internal poll shows the race... dead even. This would be more or less in line with a lot of the public polls (Rasmussen, PPP, Suffolk) and while a Republican would prefer to be ahead, has to like those odds with a furiously energized grassroots and bad weather coming next week.

Coakley was also busy not campaigning, while Scott worked the streets methodically, meeting an incredible number of voters, reinforcing the sense that he's a likable guy with a good work ethic, and good values. Coakley's cynical approach made her into the symbol of the sort of politics that voters are enraged over.

UPDATE: This is strange. Steve Kornacki says he's heard about Coakley's internal poll for Thursday, and he's saying it showed her trailing by three percent, 47 percent to 44 percent.

You can't trust campaign's leaking their own polls, but I received a fairly reliable tip from the Brown campaign that their internal polls show Brown up by three. With that as background, consider the post from Kornacki as, perhaps, verified.

I've been told reliably that Martha Coakley's internal poll for Thursday night showed her trailing Scott Brown by three points -- 47 to 44 percent.
As I wrote yesterday, her internal poll on Wednesday night had her barely ahead, 46 to 44 percent. The appearance of continued Brown momentum meshes with the Suffolk University/WHDH poll released earlier today, which put Brown ahead 50-46 percent.

The best poll to look at in this race is that Suffolk University poll released last night. It shows Scott up by 4 points. That fact, all by itself, represents an earthquake for Obama and the rest of the loony left.